More than two dozen children from the Boys & Girls Club of Philadelphia received new bikes last week thanks to the efforts of 130 high-level executives from Axalta Coating Systems and the Odyssey Teams Life Cycles team-building program. The event used a bike building exercise conducted by Odyssey to show Axalta participants how to work as a team and continually improve the customer experience. The completed bikes were then donated to a deserving group of children who participate in an after school enrichment program conducted by the Boys & Girls Club of Philadelphia.

Neither the company participants in the program nor the children receiving the bikes had any idea of the outcome, but partnerships like this have managed to put more than 12,000 bikes into the hands of children worldwide. Both the children and the adults shared in the surprise.

“Odyssey has provided a great opportunity to partner with the non-profit sector and the community during our global leadership meeting,” said Charlie Shaver, Axalta chairman and CEO. “Axalta benefits from the team building that goes into putting the bicycles together. The kids get to keep the bicycles we’ve built. Everyone wins.”

“We use bike building to provide global executives with a hands on opportunity to improve their teamwork,” explained Lain Hensley, co-founder and COO of Odyssey. “The exercise transcends culture and language as well as the day to day roles that participants have in their organizations. The surprise donation at the end of the session then converts a company exercise into a gift for the community and a memory that participants keep for years to come.”